The Two-Way

1:03 pm

Tue June 12, 2012

World Is 'Hellish Nightmare' In Player's 10-Year Long Strategy Game

If you're a fan of Waterworld, then the vision of the future in the Civilization II game played by "Lycerius" may be to your liking. (Kevin Costner in a scene from that 1995 movie.)

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"The world is a hellish nightmare of suffering and devastation." Ninety percent of the population has died from nuclear annihilation or famine. "Three superpowers have been locked in a 1,700-year war" that's "an eternal death struggle."

On Reddit earlier today, a gamer called Lycerius posted those apocalyptic notes about what the year 3991 is like in his decade-long game of Civilization II.

That's right, Lycerius has been playing the game for 10 years to "see just how far into the future I could get and see what the ramifications would be." And the world is looking Mad Max / Terminator / Waterworld awful:

-- "Ice caps have melted over 20 times," mostly because of nuclear wars. "Every inch of land in the world that isn't a mountain is inundated swamp land, useless to farming."

-- "Peace seems to be impossible" between the three superpowers (called Celts, Vikings and Americans). "Every time a cease fire is signed, the Vikings will surprise attack me or the Americans the very next turn, often with nuclear weapons."

-- "Cities are constantly attacked by spies who plant nuclear devices which then detonate."

"My goal for the next few years is to try and end the war and thus use the engineers to clear swamps and fallout so that farming may resume. I want to rebuild the world. But I'm not sure how. If any of you old Civ II players have any advice, I'm listening."